Chapter 172

"Please introduce yourselves in order, as well as your relationship with the deceased, and explain your 'presence' and alibi." Quan sat on the second chair and pointed at the red-haired girl sitting on the last chair with a pen. "First, let's start with the lady sitting on the last chair."

"I'm Alyssa, a witch." Alyssa lazily leaned back in her chair and raised her hand to twiddle a strand of her hair. "I have a cooperative relationship with this school. Since the first principal, I have been the pharmacy teacher of this school and provided everyone in the school with the medicine they need. Until 19:30, the five of us were tied together in the auditorium. I have been staying in the greenhouse garden today. It is my private area."

"Didn't you meet anyone along the way?" Quan wrote down the timeline on the clipboard while confirming her timeline with Alyssa. "Then your alibi is invalid... because no one can prove that you stayed in the greenhouse garden the whole time, which means that you were out there out of everyone's sight."

“You could say that, but I never left the greenhouse garden,” Alyssa replied.

"Okay, next." Quan's gaze moved to the aqua-haired man sitting to Alyssa's right.

"My name is Marquez, a student of this school and an apprentice of pharmacists. I just know that the deceased is the principal of our school." Marquez began to narrate his timeline in a very calm tone. "At eight o'clock in the morning, I went to the library and read until twelve o'clock noon. Mr. Holmes can testify to this."

"Okay, we'll ask him later." Quan nodded and listened to Marquez continue.

Marquez returned to the dormitory at 12:30, and was so engrossed in making potions in his room that he ignored the broadcast announcement of the start of the school celebration, so he was not present when the principal died in the auditorium - and then at 19:30 he was tied to the first row of seats at the scene with everyone else.

"That means Marquez's alibi after midnight is invalid." Quan quickly wrote down a few things and looked at the blond man sitting on Marquez's right. "Please welcome the next suspect--"

"My name is William. I am an astrologer and an astronomy teacher at SDA. The deceased is my employer. I only got to know everyone here after I started working here three years ago." William smiled gently. "My office is at the top of the school tower. It is very difficult to get in and out, so generally no one comes here. But fortunately, I was alone in the office only after 6:30 p.m. today."

"There is no alibi after 6:30...Okay, then please tell me about your timeline before today." Quan stopped writing and made a gesture of invitation to William.

"At nine in the morning, I went to the principal's office."

"To do what?"

"I have some...old things to discuss with the principal." William closed his eyes and tapped the pen in his hand nervously on the open notebook. "But the principal didn't see me, so I went to the cafeteria to eat. At 9:05, I met with the other two teachers except Miss Alyssa, and Sherlock and I sat at the same table."

"I finished my meal at 9:35. Since Sherlock had something to talk to me about, I went to his office with him. We stayed together until 6:30." William pointed to the man with long blue hair on his right. "During this time, we were discussing the same thing, but we couldn't reach a consensus by 6 o'clock dinner time, so we put it aside for the time being and went to have dinner."

"The meal ended at 6:30 and we left the cafeteria one by one."

"Is there anything to add, Sherlock?"

"There is nothing more to add to this paragraph."

"Then please let Sherlock introduce himself and complete his timeline before 9:05 in the morning." Quan tapped the writing board and stared at Sherlock who sat up straight. "According to the current statement of the alibi - William's timeline is mutually confirmed by Sherlock. The two of them have a long period of time when their alibis are established."

"I am a magic teacher at this school. The deceased is my employer. I only got to know everyone here after I started working here three years ago." Sherlock briefly introduced himself and began to narrate his own timeline. "At seven in the morning, I went to the library to borrow books. Mr. Holmes was already in the library at that time."

"I left the library at about 7:50. At 8, I returned to my office and started looking for the information I needed in the books I borrowed." Sherlock glanced at William. "Then at 9, I knew William would go to the cafeteria to eat at this time every day. Since I hadn't been to the cafeteria before, I went to the cafeteria to eat at this time."

"What happened next was just as William had said. I returned to my office at half past six."

"Okay, that leaves us with one last suspect." Quan tilted his head and looked at Holmes, who was sitting on his left. "Please introduce yourself."

"I am Sherlock Holmes, the most famous scholar in this half century. I am currently working as a librarian in SDA. The deceased is also my employer." Holmes exudes a calm aura. "I arrive at the library at 6:50 to start my day's work. I stay in the library all day. Sherlock is in the library from 7 to 7:50, and Marquez is in the library from 8 to 12."

“The rest of the time I’m alone in the library.”

"Okay, that means we haven't figured out the exact time of death of the deceased - maybe we can't even confirm that the auditorium is the first scene." Quan solemnly summarized the explanation of this alibi, and then led everyone to start the process, "Then let's start searching for evidence in groups. The first group is me, Ritsuka, William and Sherlock; the second group is Marquez, Holmes and Alyssa."

"Let's go."

The members of the second group were guided by the staff to other studios to wait for the first group to complete the search - while the members of the first group took advantage of the short break to start thinking.

"I still think there's something wrong with this case." Fujimaru Ritsuka frowned and asked William, while spinning around at the entrance of the set. "According to the setting, your characters shouldn't have seen the death of the deceased, right? I still think there's something wrong with the death of the deceased - there's definitely something wrong here."

"You can't tell them directly beforehand, but you can tell them after you find evidence." William smiled and ruffled Fujimaru Ritsuka's hair, and counseled her as a person who had experienced it before, "You should have some confidence in how much big news you can find in the evidence search process - didn't I write the first and second cases? The content I prepared for them at the time that they can tell directly is cleaner than the alibi you heard today."

"...Then we can't blame them for voting wrong." Fujimaru Ritsuka smiled and shook his head helplessly, then turned to ask the directors behind the camera, "Can we go in?"

"That's enough." Kiriya Aoi grabbed the speaker and shouted to them, "The photo taking tool is the idol phone provided by Seikou Academy. There's no limit to the number of photos you can take. The time limit is ten minutes - don't let the staff come to catch you and leave."

"Then I'll go to the auditorium to take a look at the scene, and Ritsuka goes to the principal's office to check." Izumi walked in front, and after determining the scope of his own search for evidence, he assigned the scope of the principal's office to Ritsuka.

"Okay, I understand." Ritsuka turned around and walked into the principal's office.

"Then I'll go search Marquez's dormitory." Sherlock simply opened a door and walked in to start searching for evidence.

"Then I'll go to Mr. Holmes' library." William smiled as he watched the three people leave, then turned and walked into the library.

After entering the principal's office, Fujimaru Ritsuka took a deep breath, freed herself from the role state, and then began to search for evidence - she first took a photo of the principal's office, and then took down all the portraits of past principals hanging on the walls of the principal's office.

"The back looks so scary..." Fujimaru Ritsuka looked at the back of the portraits, taking a breath while taking pictures, "It looks like the color of dried blood - but the question is, is there any meaning behind the back being painted like this? Wait, these two portraits... in the order they are hung on the wall, they are portraits of the former principal and the current principal. It seems that I can see what is written on the back of these two..."

"This is... 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth'——" Fujimaru Ritsuka took a breath subconsciously and looked towards the door of the principal's office vigilantly. "In this way, William, the only one who said he had something to ask the principal but did not explain what it was, has become more suspicious."

On the other side, in the library, William was taking pictures with his cell phone - the first piece of evidence he found in the library was a borrowing registration form; also on Holmes' desk in the library, there was an empty medicine bottle and a cigarette holder with an unburned cigarette.

Sherlock, who was in charge of searching Marquez's dormitory, found a book called "The Development of Alchemy" on Marquez's bed - there was no bookmark in it, so he didn't know whether Marquez had finished reading it or not.

"Is this something from the restricted section?" Sherlock smacked his lips, took a picture of the cover, and then flipped through the contents. "Before the official start of this semester, alchemy was still considered a forbidden skill - wait, this book records the mysterious death of the alchemist who created life!? It also records the names of all the people who were related to the alchemist at the time... Why is Marquez investigating this?"

Sherlock took pictures of all the footage that recorded the case - then his eyes fell on the mailbox at the feet of the owl on the windowsill.

"Let me see what's in here—"

Quan, who went to the crime scene alone, stared at the principal's torn body in the empty auditorium and slowly revealed a weird smile.